Life in Color Photo

Okay I love these kids that I am looking after. After a busy weekend with lots of friends and fun things I said I wanted to do something just us three like we used to do on our days. I didn’t even have to pull anybody’s leg. Nick has been wanting to learn to knit his own beenie like all the cool snowboarders do (and he’s a skater snowboarder himself). So we decided that would be our project. We headed out to the greatest little yarn shop in Salem, Have You Any Wool. Nick got slightly overwhelmed at all the choice ("I just want brown, I don’t get all these other kinds"), and Lacey had to decide between something for herself and her man (she picked the latter, because she’s just so sweet). After all those tough choices we went out to Thai food, yum, yum. As soon as we got home the Nick and Lace wanted to start their lesson right away. It got a little tense when they realized how slowly progress would be. I was pretty amazed how well they both caught on. I made them do a sample to practice and get a gage. Lacey is done and ready to cast on for her hat. Nick is on a second try of his (first one was too loose),  but really happy about it and is bringing it to school to show it off (see knitting is so cool!). They of course did have to get to their homework after a couple hours of knitting. Luckily our Internet was back up and running (I mean man, I can not live with this on and off business). An unfortunate table stapling incident later and they were off to bed. Yup good kids. I’ll have to get pictures of their little projects tomorrow.

Because it sure would be fun to get all dressed up. Lacey and I headed to Portland today to pick out her prom dress. I am staying at Nick and Lacey’s until Wednesday. Nick and Lacey are my all time favorite kids from my Summer Sitting Service I had many years ago. Every Wednesday we would have little adventures, make movies, swim, and play. It was so much fun. Now I come to Salem to stay with them whenever their parents go out of town for a while. They are 13.5 and just fifteen (and Lacey just got her permit, congratulations!) so they don’t really need me that much anymore. But it is still fun to come and take them out and hear what is going on with their lives. Since I’ve graduated high school I’ve probably stayed here ten times or so, a couple times a year. I was here with them when the planes struck the twin towers. It was so weird. That was the moment in my life when I realized I was really a grown up. I was with them when I was just getting to know Bj. He came over to watch a movie while I was staying here and we sat as far away from each other on the couch as we could. These were the first kids I ever watched over night. And that first time at their old house they had a new puppy that I couldn’t get to stop barking at night. It was getting later and later. The kids were in bed I was crying trying to get the puppy to stop and had to call my parents to come help me. But now the kids are grown up and we get to do fun things like shop for prom dresses.

So Lacey and I set out at about 10:30 and left Nick behind (because he is so not interested in prom dresses!). We went to about a zillion shops and didn’t see much besides big poofy princess dresses, which of course was not what Lacey was looking for. Thank goodness because we just popped our heads into a Jessica McClintock and it was absolute craziness in there! After going first to BCBG and putting a few dresses on hold we tried everywhere else. We ended up going back to BCBG and got one of those dresses. A shorter dress that goes from light pink to pink to dark pink to melon from top to bottom. It has little straps and is really cute (sorry can’t find a picture). Then we had to go all over to find silver shoes and jewelry, but it was fun. We took a break to have some great Japanese food at Bush Garden. We headed home around six, rolled in and heated up a frozen pizza. Nick had a good day too and went to see Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy with his friends. He said it was "pretty good."

*On a side note I am totally and utterly addicted to the Internet. When I got here comcast was down and so there was nothing. For over 24 hours no Internet, ahhhh. We got back from Portland and it was restored, phew. Oh, and someone asked in the comments about the ribbon jar… not long now!!!

This is my favorite all time thing to make and eat. I am pretty sure I could live off of it:

2 onions
7 strips bacon
lots of potatoes (I think I used a whole bag yesterday)
1 can creamed corn
1 can not creamed corn
salt
pepper
and I don’t think it is complete with out Johnny’s

Cook bacon in little pieces:

try not to eat all the bacon after you take it out of the pan.

Cut up your onions really teeny tiny:

Then to make it extra yummy you simmer the onions in the bacon fat in a big soup pan with salt and pepper (and Johnny’s). While this is going on peal the potatoes and cut them into chunks. Then after the onions have been going for like five minuets put in the potatoes and just cover with water. I add more salt and pepper usually. I cook this until the potatoes are soft. I like doing it with the lid off because I think the texture is better. Then after the potatoes are cooked drain the non-creamed corn and stick it in, and then stick in the whole creamed corn can. Add in the bacon that you cooked earlier.  Make sure it all gets warm. Serve with grated cheddar cheese and homemade biscuits, yum, yum, yum.

Last night I was watching an episode of Smallville in real time (gasp!) and there was this Mentos commercial on there that killed me. It was so weird and funny, basically the kind of thing that gets me on a roll. It starts out with little birds in a nest and the momma bird feeds the little bird a Mentos and then they start chirping this song. Well then all these other birds chime in and you hear a parrot say "there’s no limit," I don’t think this commercial has anything to do with Mentos but whatever. I rewound it and watched it until Bj threatened to take the TiVo remote away from me (nooooo!). So I can’t find a down loadable version of the commercial, however I did find out the song is "No Limit" by 2 Unlimited. And you can bet I am going to get that today! If I figure out how to get the commercial off of my TiVo and on here I’ll post it (but it’s not looking good since TiVo to Go isn’t available for OS X yet).

And in other TV related news my brother’s super smart friend is going to be on Judge Judy for beating up a car with his bear hands! You heard me right people. The car he beat up was, unfortunately for him, a football player’s so that guy beat his face. This has to be up there with my cousin’s then boyfriend who got mentioned on David Letterman for getting an antenna crammed up his nose while working on his car. Ya, I don’t really have much else to say.

I have ink all over my hands today from drawing more sketches for the Ribbon Jar. I did a bunch and then we got them all in the computer and now I don’t like how they look at all. AHHHHH! But that is how art and design works if it was easy no one would ever center type, am I right people? That is pretty much all I did today besides scare the crap out of Bj. I am always looking for opportunities to do this and today when he went to check the mail I could not resist. I hid behind this little counter thing that sticks out of the kitchen and kind of makes a walkway. As soon as I heard him step through the door I popped up and screamed. He screamed and said, "If I was a girl I would so punch you in the stomach right now." This scaring people thing never gets old for me. I used to wait outside the bathroom for my brother almost every time he went in! Ha ha I’m cracking up now thinking of that. Well off to watch the Amazing Race even though Lynn and Alex were kicked off last week -boo hoo!

SUCKS!
Today I drove to Salem for a dentist appointment, got up early, got all cute and was ten minuets early! Yeah! I was like, "hey, I’m here for my appointment, blah, blah, blah." And the lady is all, "your appointment was at 8:40 and you missed it." I knew I did not make an appointment that early since I have to drive an hour to get there, so I get out my planner and the card they sent me:


I said, "Well here is the card you sent me and someone called me last week to check with me that I was still coming and I wrote it in my planner right here." She looks at it, then me. "Oh I’m so sorry about that." silence. "Well can I see the dentist now?" "Let me go check." (see goes and checks) "no, sorry." "Well should I make another appointment?" "We don’t have anything available for quite a while, I’m sorry." What the!!! God!!!! "Well can I please be placed on some kind of waiting list?" "oh, yes I can do that." AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. So I left, very annoyed but determined not to be all bitchy, because that doesn’t solve anything, right? So I flipped to a peppy playlist on my iPod and cranked it up. Then I get on the freeway and the whole construction section a huge semi was riding my rear. Ugh. I mean I’m not exactly a granny so it’s not like I’m going slow. Geez. So then I get home.

Bj and I decide that we are going to try and make the huge ribbon rack a little better. So we decide to drive to Home Depot in Albany (or actually he decided because he said that our little local hardware/lumber yard wouldn’t have what we needed). So we got there and they didn’t have any of the stuff we needed. So then I got all pissy and just played Lumines the whole trip back to Corvallis with out looking up. Then we get to the little local place and they have everything and are super nice and quick. We get everything back practically kill ourselves trying to make this thing. But I have to say now it is up and really cool looking (pictures to come later).

My brother came over after that and the three of us headed out to gelato. And of course when the boys get together and I’m there they have to make fun of me (which I don’t mind too much because it is pretty funny). The gelato comes in these little containers and Brent’s all "I should save these." Then Bj’s all (in a high voice) "Oh yes, we should plant little flowers in here." Brent (in an even higher voice), "No way, I am totally sorting all my beads into these." LOL those boys know me too well.

I have always loved Tetris, pretty much the only video game I can understand. But this new puzzle game for the PSP, Lumines is just so addictive. I can’t seem to get past level 39, but I’ll keep you posted. The only thing I am worried about is that there is no "end" to the game, so technically you could play forever (yikes!).

Now I have a question for all of you out there. i was wondering about where to find good blog lists and if you yourself are on any. I have heard of blog drive but I don’t really know anything about it. I’ve managed to find some blogs that I really love totally randomly when I go to the TypePad home page and click on the recently updated. I think that is how some people have added me too. I really like the way blogs can interconnect people and think really interesting chains can develop. So any good lists you know of would be cool (you know, if you told me about them).

*edited to add: I just got to level 44, no end in site and I pulled a muscle or something in my lower arm. ugh.

Baby clothes are just the cutest little things ever!  I love the soft baby only type clothes, but I also love these mini human clothes. That little outfit is for a friend who is due in less then a month. I just love this shirt. It so looks like something Bj would wear, but so so tiny. In the store I held it up to Bj and was just like, awww Bj, isn’t this the cutest? Then he pointed out that we had been in Target for like two hours and were going to be late to our movie. See Sciarrino, Bj and I all headed into Salem yesterday for a day of shopping. Actually we dropped Bj off to work for a bit while Sciarrino and I went to the cute little shops that he wouldn’t really be interested in. We checked out the Paper Zone before heading down town. We had lunch at the Arbor Cafe. I absolutely love their turkey paninis with pickled onions, yum! After that we went to Exit where I got a really cute skirt. I also saw this Paul Frank Barbie which was so cool, and on sale, but I didn’t get because I didn’t need it, yay me. We went into the mall and wandered a bit after we got drinks at Orange Julius. I got a top that is longer so I can wear it with my low rise jeans and it covers all my wobbly bits. It’s really cute, but the girls at the shop were really annoying. They have to be at least seven years younger than me and they called me "Hun." What? And then they said everything was "awesome." "Are you going to get that top?" "yes" "Okay, awesome I can ring you up over here Hun." Ugh. I mean, I like saying something is awesome, WHEN IT ACTUALLY IS,  not just because you don’t know what else to say. Made me feel really old though getting annoyed over that. So we left the mall and headed down to State Street where all the cool shops are now. Cooke’s Stationary is an old school office supply shop. I got dymo refills and ink for my fountain pen in fuchsia and turquoise. Across the street is Ma Valise, a little boutique. In the picture above there are little metal tokens and I got those there. Next door to that is the Arbor. It used to be attached to the cafe that we had lunch at but it recently moved. I got those neat chalk stone letters there (far left of picture), and a little button that has a monkey and underneath it says "business."  hehehe cracked me up.

Sciarrino and I picked up Bj, head to Lancaster (yuck, I know) (oh, but maybe some of you don’t. It’s a street in Salem that is like one gigantic strip mall) and went to Target. In addition to the little human outfit (oh and I also got him foot finders Kay!) I got two pairs of really cute heels, two skirts and another longer top. Phew, that was the most shopping I’d done in a long time all in one day! Then we went to A Lot Like Love. It was better than the preview, as it wasn’t quite so predicable. Very cute. After the movie I really wanted to have a go on the Dance Dance Mats  (omg, looking for that link, I found this: Dance Dance Revelation hahahaha), but no one else would participate in the public humiliation (though they were both willing to give me quarters to do it). So we headed to Mom’s. I guess my mom did not see the humor in the music I loaded onto her new iPod mini. I just mixed in a few newer songs, she needs more "old fogy" music on there (HER words, not mine). But I just have to say, the hassle of putting all new music on there is worth it just to know she is going to come across 50 cent’s In da Club before I get the chance, LOLOLOL! I can just see her running along. OH man. Sorry Mom. 🙂 I love you!!

Today wasn’t nearly as exciting, mostly just working all day. Trying to get the colors right on the web store, and realizing that I am really really picky so it is taking forever. Bj cooked dinner and I made Julia’s famous cookies. It poured all day today so it smells really good outside. 🙂

Jessi commented that she thinks it’s cool that my parent’s comment, hey so do I! Dad I am totally taking you up on that offer to see Paul! But I love it when anyone comments, so go right ahead.